A blog which charts our journey through the adoption process. The ups and downs, the process and the pondering, the self-exploration and the anticipation.
Hopefully these jottings will be a reassurance, and perhaps be a little enlightening, to others considering this particular journey or making their way through it themselves.

Monday, 29 July 2013

Chapter 16 – Friends: the second home-study visit

Memories...

It was a week or so after our first
meeting with Denise, the Earl Grey was brewing nicely in the pot and
some Duchy Originals were arranged on a plate saying, “Eat me, eat
me...”. We were ready to resume trawling through our pasts for
Denise’s benefit.

It’s strange dredging through past
memories and mining them for significance. It’s not something which
we generally do. We certainly don’t do it in chronological order.
One of the exercises which we had done on our Prep Days was to think
through the key developmental moments from our personal histories and
chart them on a time-line. Alongside each event we had to indicate
whether it was an “Up” arrow or a “Down” arrow. Looking back
over what I consider to be a broadly happy childhood it was
fascinating to see how many arrows were pointing downwards rather
than upwards. It seemed that happiness and contentment were a
continuum which was punctuated by traumas of different types. I
suppose I should be glad that it wasn’t the other way around!

We each worked through our charts with
Denise throwing in comments at certain points and pausing to discuss
others. At one point I described how, after a house move I ended up
for a term in a school where, for those three months I, was regularly
bullied. “Excellent!” said Denise. “Pardon?” “Ah, well,
yes... in terms of you being able to demonstrate that you can
empathise with how a child who’s lived under a threat of physical
violence might feel. That’s the sort of thing that Panel can pick
up and which can be helpful.”

Well, that made sense. Similarly a
spell in hospital when I was about four – the separation anxiety
from which I could still conjure up surprisingly vividly when I
thought back to it. In fact, it surprised me the strength of emotion
which was still associated with different life events from my
childhood when I looked back on them. It was also interesting how
time spent musing on earlier periods of my life seemed to unearth
more deeply hidden memories from underneath those which were
occupying the space in the upper layers of my memory. Often just
little details and fragments of memory but intensely felt
nonetheless. However, it was a truly fascinating process.

On and on, the questions went, digging
into what made us tick as individuals and as a couple. All helping
Denise get a feeling for us and potentially useful evidence for
reports in the future. During the final Prep Day we’d been shown
the format of the paperwork which would be worked through across the
home study. Denise went through a thick sheaf of papers with us and
explained how she would approach each of them. Some we’d work
through together, some as homework. Finally we got to the sheet which
had raised eyebrows the most in our group sessions. The “Sexual
Preferences Chart”. On this we were supposed to discuss with our
social worker and set out, on paper, the boundaries of our sexual
exploration individually and as a couple. What we both liked, what
one of us would like while the other was wary of and what was off
limits. Denise pulled it out from the lever arch folder, blushed very
slightly and looked at it for a few seconds. “Well, I don’t think
we need to bother with that one.” she said firmly while folding it
carefully into four and popping it into her bag.

Phew! I’m sure that it would have
been fine had we done it. However, in reality we don’t actually
live in an episode of “Friends” where such detail is the stuff of
coffee bar conflabs! The thought of discussing that sort of detail
with someone with whom we were still only just becoming acquainted
was even more off putting. Denise clearly felt the same way.

An example eco-map taken from the internet

And so we turned to study the eco-map
which we had prepared over the last few evenings. It’s a strangely
clinical thing to do – to list and analyse your own network of
friends and acquaintances to see what benefits you can derive from
that relationship. The provision of emotional support was, of course,
one aspect of that. Ironically this more nebulous element was the
easiest to set out. But that wasn’t enough. What about the
practical, day to day assistance? Who would babysit your children on
that evening when you simply HAD to get out of the house and be
yourselves again? Who would nip down the shops to pick up a pint of
milk, a loaf of bread and a tin of beans for you on the day you’re
both laid up with the mother of all flu?

After the discussions at the Prep Days
other questions started to occur to us. Did our eco-map demonstrate
the right mix of ages, genders, sexualities, ethnicities, religions,
cultures? How would the Adoption Panel view this when they considered
our paperwork. We managed to put these thoughts out of our minds.
Second guessing ourselves was bad enough without starting to third
and fourth guess ourselves too.

However, there was something Denise
asked us to think about which did merit further consideration. As a
childless couple in our 40s we had, unsurprisingly, gravitated
towards friends of a similar demographic. Those friends who did have
kids were now in the throes of GCSEs or A-Levels or, indeed, packing
them off to university. As a couple with a (probably demanding and
difficult) young child, how would these groups react. In particular
what about friends whose child-free status had been forced on them
rather than a lifestyle choice? Would they throw themselves into our
new adventure or would they withdraw? Would seeing us with a child
simply be too painful for them? Good point and one to mull over.
Where would we find fellow “young” mums to swap toddler woes
with? How would we find new networks and how would we break into
them?

Armed with some helpful comments and
advice we promised to complete the eco-map in the next week or so. As
our next two sessions would be a little different from normal Denise
set us a long list of homework to do. Drawing up a day in the life
before and after placement with a child. Doing an audit of what we
did with our time, our leisure, our responsibilities, our chores, our
work and then commenting on how each of those would change after
placement. What activities would we reduce and what would we drop...?
Crumbs...

Finally, Denise asked how we planned to
get additional child care experience. We were both helping out at the
crèche at our church. My wife had already been making arrangements
with work to temporarily reduce her hours so that she could help out
at a local crèche. For me it had been more difficult and work
considered that they were being more than generous accommodating the
various social worker meetings. More mid-week days off weren’t
really on the cards. However, Denise thought that just the crèche
wasn’t really enough. “OK” I said, “I’ll check out whether
the local Cubs or Beaver troops could use another helper.” At least
that could be done in the evening or at the weekend. And what was
another CRB check form between friends?

Plenty to be getting on with between
now and our next meetings with Denise... two solo interviews and a
detailed questionnaire on our personal attachment styles.

4 comments:

We too were required to take time out to gain experience with children. I ended up taking a few hours a week off to work in a local nursery, and hubby was very lucky to have a firm who ran a community responsibility scheme, and during his working hours he volunteered as a Women's Aid refuge nursery as a positive male role model. It wasn't easy though, and on top of all the other time off we needed, our employers got a little hacked off. In reality, I'm not sure that either of our experiences were useful anyway!

I definitely wouldn't worry too much about finding the right mix of other parents by age or the age of their kids, if I were you. Every playground is filled with Mums from 20 to 50, as well as grandparent-carers. What you'll really need is a friend, whatever shape or size!